[Aztlan] Phosphorous and the Maya

[David Hixson]

Dear Jules,

Periphyton is actually very common in all near-coastal
areas along the north and west coasts of the Yucatan
peninsula, especially in the Yalahau and the wetlands
west of Chunchucmil areas.  In fact, if you ever read
a report that mentions "sac luum" (white soil) in
coastal Yucatan, this is likely decayed periphyton. 
Nearly 1/3 of my survey area for my dissertation
contained the residues of periphyton decay.

Regarding the comment by Jules, Dr. Fedick and I
(along with his crew and mine) have debated this
scenario on many occasions.

I will fully admit that the Yalahau project has much
better evidence for this practice (harvesting
periphyton for fertilizer) thus far.  Associated
studies include shells that should have grown only
within wetlands - yet they were found within milpas
many kilometers inland.

The Yalahau project was the first to propose such a
scenario of fertilizing using periphyton (see
publications by Fedick and others:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0093-4690(200022)27%3A2%3C131%3AWMITYR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

http://www.haworthpressinc.com/store/sampletext/4782.pdf

http://www.springerlink.com/content/j35850x276606j63/

http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5449&context=postprints

I personally have found many rock alignments that at
first seemed similar in form to those from Yalahau,
but in the end I concur with those from the Yalahau
team that the rock alignments of Chunchucmil appear
more similar to the "andadores" of northern wetland
sites.

Thus, those rock alignments from Yalahau truly do
appear to be containment barriers (such as soil traps
or other erosion control features to foment growth),
while those in the western wetlands of Chunchucmil
appear to be more linear and meant to promote foot
transportation *across* a similar landscape, giving
archaeologists a glimpse of long-distance traffic
across the western wetlands.

-Dave

--- Jules Siegel <jules at cafecancun.com> wrote:

> I inadvertently deleted the message. Here's
> something interesting that 
> immediately came to mind:
> 
> <http://cafecancun.com/eden.shtml>
> 
> The ancient Maya may have cultivated mats of algae
> called periphyton for 
> fertilizer, according to new evidence uncovered by
> scientists at the El 
> Eden Ecological Reserve near Cancun.
> ...
> 
> The ponds were covered with thick periphyton mats.
> Since periphyton were 
> found to concentrate nitrogen and phosphorous, El
> Eden researchers 
> theorized that they might have been used as
> fertilizer. Experiments by 
> Sergio Palacios and Ana Luisa Anaya revealed that
> periphyton is as 
> effective as chemical fertilizers.


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